Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada

Aug 11, 2023

We named our trip “Roaming North America” instead of “Roaming the United States” because we were hoping we’d get some time in Canada and maybe Mexico. Well, three months in and we had a full week in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

The drive from Bangor, Maine to Saint John was lovely. Trees and trees and hills and trees. Truly a beautiful drive. With such a low population across the huge state of Maine, we were the only car around for most of the drive. Honestly, that gets kind of creepy.

The Hilton upgraded us to a room on the top (12th) floor, which was amazing. We were walking distance from a small “mall,” a city market, and a bunch of restaurants. We also drove around a good bit and found some amazing locations.

Here are some photos from Saint John.

The view from our 12th floor room at Hilton Saint John

Another view from our hotel window

A view of the boardwalk from our hotel window

Another view from our hotel window

Another view from our hotel window. So much fun watching these be loaded.

Outside our hotel room during a beautiful sunset

A huge visitor to the boardwalk

The boardwalk outside our hotel

Blueberry craft beer. Yes, blueberries. They floated up and down in the glass.

Fried Haddock was everywhere.

An alley in Saint John downtown

Our Hilton from Saint John downtown

Sharon the angel

City Market front entrance

Back side of City Market

City Market inside

Eating area attached to the City Market

Chuck and Chip after lunch at Canada’s Oldest Market

A beautiful door to the City Market.

A view in the park

Flowers at a park near the hotel

A war memorial statue at a park near our hotel

Freddie’s Pizza and Donair – our first time trying Donair

Saint John is a city of firsts. Click here to open a new window with an image of a sign with a list of firsts.

Right in the middle of the city of Saint John is the second largest city park in North America (second to Central Park in NYC). A beautiful park with a great nonprofit restaurant where we got to try our first Poutine (Canadian dish of French fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy). So good we had it twice again.

Here are some photos that only barely show how beautiful this park is, free for everyone, well maintained.

Lily’s Restaurant on the lake

Statue in front of Lily’s Restaurant on the lake

Chuck at Lily’s Restaurant on the lake

Poutine

Pond view

Pond view with geese

Pond view with ducks

Pond view with Chuck and Chip

Beautiful ferns

Pond view

Chuck and Chip

Chip the abominable snowman

Pond view

The RNA SUV at a pond

At the highest point in Saint John is an old military installation named The Carleton Martello Tower. For the history, read the signs photographed below, or go here to Wikipedia. We went late afternoon and found it closed for the day. So we walked around and took in the most amazing views. Be sure to check out the panoramas.

While looking for a lighthouse named Musquash Head Lighthouse, we found out it required a decent hike we were not prepared for. So we continued down the road by the lighthouse and found Black Beach. Beautiful. It’s a black beach due to graphite deposits, compared to volcanic black beaches elsewhere.